Friday Five with Sruli Recht

The Sruli Recht studio is a small cross-discipline practice caught somewhere between product design, tailoring and shoe making. Based in Reykjavík, Iceland, the studio produces one “non-product” every month from umbrellas to bulletproof scarves, tables, to belts and boots, and incorporating such materials as concrete, diamonds, skin and wool.

I am at one with these objects.

1. The Chest of an Atlantic Seabird
Once, whilst visiting a leather tanner in the north of Iceland, I was shown this feathered roll as he pulled it out from under a workbench. Two years later, when visiting him again he pulled it from the exact same spot. Professing again my love for this item, it was gifted to me.

2. Baleen, bent into a bracelet
As above, a baleen frond, received also as a gift. A small piece was snapped off, soaked in the hottest of waters, and bent.

3. A little slice of road.
Found on the side of a road. This is how roads begin, as a baby road.

4. Sharkskin, boiled. An accident.
The Greenlandic Grey Shark, hunted by tribes. The same tanner was drying it, but over heated it. One man’s treasure…

5. Leir, dried silcon and sulphuric mud
Basically clay, few parts salt, minerals and a pinch of sulfur and algae. Found on the beach of Vík just a few hours before volcano Fimmvórðuhálsi provided an earth shattering kaboom. The enormous rock this piece was removed was subsequently washed away by the flood.

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living the laid back life in SoCal. She dreams about architectural jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, and drawing.